Tapping Hitler's Generals

Document 13

CSDIC (UK), SR REPORT, SRGG 342 [TNA, WO 208/4166]

LUDWIG CRÜWELL–General der Panzertruppe–Captured 29 May 42 in North Africa.

GOTTHART FRANTZ–Generalleutnant (GOC 19th Flak Division)–Captured 12 May 43 in Tunisia.

Information received: 12 Aug. 43

CRÜWELL: If no decision has been reached next year–and I see in that our greatest hope–the Americans will get out of the European war. After all, what do they want here? What interest have they in ITALY? What has GERMANY done to them? They’ve made a mass of money as usual–they’ve no love for the English–and above all, they recognise the Jewish poison at work among their people and realise how they are blackmailing their leaders. We see the Jewish poison in this heavy attack on HAMBURG.[29] It is the Jews who want to destroy us down to the last man. They know that the National Socialist doctrine will spread all over the world and they want to save themselves by hook or by crook from their inevitable extinction. […]

Document 14

CSDIC (UK), SR REPORT, SRGG 399 [TNA, WO 208/4166]

WILHELM RITTER VON THOMA–General der Panzertruppe–Captured 4 Nov. 42 in North Africa.

RUDOLF BUHSE–Oberst (OC 47th Grenadier Regiment)–Captured 9 May 43 in Tunisia.

A 1237–Oberst (OC Flak) [?][30] Captured 9 May 43 in Tunisia.

Information received: 12 Sept. 43

THOMA: (re ITALY’s surrender): In October 1940 I handed over a report of sixteen pages to BRAUCHITSCH.[31] I foresaw the whole thing. I also said the same thing to General CRÜWELL (PW) on 20 November 1942 when I arrived in ENGLAND. For this reason I am regarded as a criminal by the others. I regret every bomb, every scrap of material and every human life that is still being wasted in this senseless war. The only gain that the war will bring us is the end of the ten years of gangster rule. In my opinion the collapse of GERMANY is inevitable. I have been expecting it and I only hope it will happen soon. I hope that the end will come this autumn.

BUHSE: I hope that the Russians will come to an understanding with us.

THOMA: That’s impossible. It’s too late now. It would have been possible last year, but our so-called leaders didn’t want it.[32] Every day the war continues constitutes a crime. The men at the top must realise that. KEITEL and DÖNITZ, for example, are the men. They must put ADOLF HITLER in a padded cell.[33] A gang of rogues can’t rule for ever. It would be a pity if any one of them was shot. They ought to be made to do heavy work until they drop down dead. You will now see the English and Americans occupying the Italian airfields. They will occupy SARDINIA and CORSICA and then they will invade FRANCE.

BUHSE: I believe that we shall clear out of ITALY according to plan.

A 1237: I think so too.

Document 15

CSDIC (UK), SR REPORT, SRGG 615 [TNA, WO 208/4167]

ULRICH BOES–Major (Staff Officer to Generalleutnant von SPONECK (PW))–Captured 9 May 43 in Tunisia.

BÜHLER–Unteroffizier (Batman to Generalmajor von BROICH (PW))–Captured 12 May 43 in Tunisia.

Information received: 4 Dec. 43

BOES: In spite of the fact that we have… total warfare, the resources of the German people have not nearly been exhausted yet. As long as we don’t use women as drivers at the front, we still haven’t got total war. If our homes are at stake, if our Fatherland is at stake and if we must fight on the ODER…. No quarter will be given…. If we capitulate now, then GERMANY will be wiped out once and for all and you will probably find yourself in SIBERIA with me on some fine job or other, unless we perish on the way. We shall never hear anything of our families again. You will never be able to marry and the German people will be finished for ever. Do you believe–it makes you laugh–that a people like the damned English, of forty-nine millions or whatever it is,[34] with their supercilious but completely slow and uncultured methods, should want to dominate the German people; that’s a piece of insolence which we simply cannot accept; our national pride won’t allow us to be ruled by such swine.

BÜHLER: That’s quite right.

BOES: We have all got to know them. We know what it looks like, the street’s… there are a few cities, which are perhaps not bad, but the rest of it is damned awful and the people are swine and if we compare our German towns with it, or our German railways and our German traffic system and all that, then we realise that ours is a really fine country, that everything there is first class. As GOEBBELS said yesterday: ‘Of course one ought to learn from the enemy, but one ought not to admire the enemy.’ I gave up admiring them long ago; I admire our people.[35]

BÜHLER: The more I see of this business, it is really as you said just now, Sir, they have got their navy, but that is all. […]

Document 16

CSDIC (UK), SR REPORT, SRGG 748 [TNA, WO 208/4167]

The following is the text of a speech by: